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Does anyone else remember when fast food companies told us their food would be delicious, make us happy, allow us to have pleasant, yummy experiences around the table with our families as we all unwrapped our Big Macs or dug into our Frosties?

Now, it seems, the tact has changed. Now we're being assaulted with images of towering, dripping, angry food that SHOULD scare us. It's Us vs. Them and we don't stand a chance. This burger is coming for our organs and there's nothing we can do about it. Don't buy it? HA! Nice try. It's stalking toward your house in the dead of night and it knows which room is your daughter's.

But...it's just a sandwich, right? It's not like I've never eaten fast food. There have been times I've basically lived on the stuff. I am no gastronomic coward. My heart, liver and kidneys have lived on the edge, laughed in the face of danger (and diabetes) and stuck their collective noses up at vegetarians and other assorted health nuts with their "low cholesterol" and "ability to run several miles without collapsing into a quivering mass of clammy flesh, coughing and soiling themselves."

So why does the Baconator make the hair on the back of my neck stand up?

Well -- let's look at the numbers.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments below, these numbers are a bit weird. Sometimes when I entered 1 Baconator into the field for nutrition information, I got the number below. Sometimes I got about half that. Sometimes I got a third number, that was even lower and not a multiple of either number. Always I entered the quantity as "1."

If the 830 calorie figure is the correct one that would still put the Baconator above any but Hardees' burger. But if it's correct, I'm highly suspicious. Six strips of bacon by themselves would be enough calories and fat to make the number inoperative if you added two patties, cheese and a bun.)

Nutritional information - Baconator (source: Wendy's)

Calories: 1670
Calories from fat: 920
Total fat: 102 grams
Saturated fat: 44
Trans fats: 5
Cholesterol: 345 mg
Sodium: 3840 mg
Total carbs: 70
Dietary Fiber: 3
Total sugars: 17
Protein: 113

That wasn't a typo. 1670 calories. Based on a 2000 calorie diet that's nearly your entire recommended daily intake for the day. And that's without the Coke and fries.

How does that stack up against similar burgers at other joints?

Well, Burger King's double-patty BK Stacker has four strips of bacon to the Baconator's six and clocks in at a comparatively measly 610 calories. Its total fat is 39 grams to the Baconator's 102. You can create a stacker with even more layers, but double-cheeseburger for double-cheeseburger it's no contest at all. (Source: Burger King)

The biggest, fattest burger on McDonalds' menu is the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. It's 740 calories with 380 calories from fat. Add bacon and it still doesn't compare. (Source: McDonald's)

Even Hardees' 2/3 lb. Double Bacon Cheese Thickburger doesn't measure up, coming in at 1300 calories and 96 total grams of fat.(Source: Hardee's)

So what does this monstrosity look like, outside of the crispy-bacon and fluffy bun fantasies of the glossy-mag ad campaign?

This is an unretouched picture of the burger I ordered today from the Wendy's on Lee Street, just as it was served to me:

And it tasted just as good as it looked -- a squishy, chewy mass of limp, stringy bacon clumped atop sagging, greasy, low-quality meat patties, covered in gooey bright yellow American cheese melt and dollops of mayo. No lettuce, no onion, no tomato -- because who are we kidding, really? Produce would be a pathetic pretense atop this slimy wad of coronary-inducing terror.

Even as I ate it I felt that sick, sour-stomach sensation coming on -- the kind you get toward the end of a state fair when you've stuffed yourself with five kinds of fried meat, three kinds of pork barbecue, a candy apple and funnel cake.

Hours later, it's still sitting in my stomach like a brick covered in broken glass.

It's nothing but mineral water and celery for the rest of the day as I sweat, belch and hiccup this thing out of my system and beg my colon to forgive me.